Fresh Fish 4/FreshFish_May-June1994.bin/useful/reviews/software/graphics/imagefx

Internet Message Format | 1993-12-22 | 20KB

Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet
From: [e-mail] (Per Espen Hagen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: ImageFX 1.50
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Date: 22 Dec 1993 16:15:02 GMT
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Lines: 423
Sender: [e-mail] (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <2f9rq6$[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Per Espen Hagen)
NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu
Keywords: graphics, image processing, morph, paint, 24-bit, commercial


PRODUCT NAME

    ImageFX 1.50


BRIEF DESCRIPTION

    Complete image manipulation package, for image restoration,
retouching, enhancement, analysis, painting, warping, and morphing; scanning
and digitizing; printing; file conversion.  Features a nice, configurable
GUI and an extensive ARexx interface.


AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

    Name:        Great Valley Products, Inc.
    Address:    657 Clark Ave.
            King of Prussia, PA 19406
            USA

    Telephone:    [phone]
    FAX:        [phone]


LIST PRICE

    I paid GBP 170 ex. VAT.


SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

    HARDWARE

        At least 3 MB RAM.  More is recommended.
        Hard drive strongly recommended.
        Works with any CPU.  68020 or higher is recommended.
        FPU recommended for some operations, but not required.
        AGA chipset recommended, but by no means required.

        Image processing is of course one of the most CPU and memory
        intensive tasks there is.  It goes without saying that a
        reasonably well-equipped Amiga is vital for any serious use
        of this program.

    SOFTWARE

        Requires AmigaDOS 1.3 or higher.
        AmigaDOS 2.0 or higher is recommended.


COPY PROTECTION

    None.  Hard drive installable.


MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

    Amiga 1200 HD with MBX-1200z.
    14.2 MHz 68020/68881.
    2 MB Chip RAM, 4 MB Fast RAM.
    Kickstart/Workbench 3.0.

    SysInfo rating: 4.80 x A600.
    AIBB ratings: ~0.6 x A4000/030 (integer), ~1 x A4000/030 (graphics),
    3-20 x A4000/030 (FP math).


INSTALLATION

    The program comes on 4 floppies, and installation to a hard drive is
very easy.  It uses Commodore's Installer program.  By using the "Expert"
mode of Installer, you may choose to install portions or all of ImageFX.

    If used from floppy, the first disk contains the main program, ready
to use (that is, in uncompressed form).


FIRST IMPRESSIONS

    ImageFX can be run the instant the installation process is finished;
i.e., no reboots or other nasty operations are necessary.  The various menus,
windows, and requesters looked a little blocky on the default setup.  I soon
changed this by using an Interlaced Panel and the Helvetica/11 font.

    The normal display consists of two or three screens on top of each
other:  the Preview screen, the Palette screen (which can be turned off), and
the Gadgets screen.  The latter two screens can be toggled on/off by
clicking the right mouse button.  This multiple-screen concept is similar to
that of ImageMaster and Brilliance.

    Generally, the program is VERY configurable.  The preview mode can
be any ScreenMode, screen type (normal/EHB/HAM), and depth supported by the
Amiga (or one of several 24-bit graphics cards).  For instance, I often use
"Super72:Super-High Res Laced HAM8" for precise painting, cropping, etc., and
"DblPAL:Low Res HAM8" for faster response on other operations.

    The gadgets screen has five primary buttons that change the program
"mode":  Scanner, Palette, Toolbox, Render, and Print.  Each of these
buttons, when pushed, brings up various other buttons and gadgets.  The
Toolbox panel can be customized completely.  The screen layout is generally
quite intuitive and user-friendly.


FEATURES

    ImageFX is absolutely packed with features, so I can only give a few
examples in this review.

    First of all, the package has support for loading and saving in most
image file formats you can think of, including IFF-ILBM, JPEG, GIF, TIFF,
Targa, PBM, BMP, ANIM5/7, FLI/FLC, and even Amiga icon format (".info"
files).  The loader support is a bit more extensive than the saver support,
but both should be more than adequate for most people.

    ImageFX will also render to any Amiga OCS/ECS/AGA screenmode, as well
as several graphics boards (including DCTV, Retina, and OpalVision).  The
AGA rendering quality is high, although the LUT selection can sometimes be
very slow.  There are even three different algorithms for LUT selection
(MedianCut, Enhanced, and Tibbett), for better control of the process.

    The Toolbox is the heart of ImageFX.  It features a decent range of
24-bit painting tools and modes:  freehand, line, curve, box, airbrush, fill,
brush, etc.  One very useful feature is the Pantograph painting mode, where
you copy from one part of the image to another.  You can paint with varying
degrees of Blend, use the Alpha buffer, and other options.  The painting
tools are quite useful for image retouching etc, but ImageFX certainly is no
rival to Brilliance for image creation.

    Among the other buttons in the Toolbox are Balance, Composite,
Rotate, Size, Color, Convolve, Transform, Filter, and Effect.  Pressing any
of these buttons pops up a small list of possible operations.  Selecting any
of these in turn usually causes a requester with detailed options to
appear.  For instance, you can select Convolve, then select Edge Detect from
the list, and then set the detection threshold for edges.  Press Okay, and
the Edge Detect filter is run.  I really like this method of organization.
By dividing the operations into several groups, each list becomes short and
synoptic (a quick summary).  And if you don't like the default grouping of
operations, you can always define your own.

    As for the operators themselves, many look strangely familiar for an
ADPro (ASDG's Art Department Professional) user.  The Balance window, for
instance, is more or less identical to that of ADPro (except that you can
select the colour space with ImageFX:  RGB, HSV, or CMYK).  Another
difference is that ImageFX lacks the intermediate colour table of ADPro.
Once you Okay any balance changes, these are applied to the buffer.  This is
unfortunate, as you lose some information each time you modify the colour
balance (overflow/multiple-colours-to-one).  Of course, ImageFX can Undo any
changes, but that's hardly the ideal way of handling this.  (Also, an
intermediate colour map would probably be quite slow if the balancing was
performed in the HSV colour space; but for RGB and CMYK, it would simply be
a LUT for each RGB component.)  HSV balancing means you can "rotate" the
colours (purple becomes red, yellow becomes green, etc.), by adjusting the
Hue.  A fun effect, if not particularly useful.  The way I use this feature
is to try out the settings in a small region of the image (and Undo them
again) until the results are satisfactory, then apply to the full image.  So
it's not so bad after all, just different I guess.

    One of ImageFX's biggest fortes is the processing of regions.  Most
of the above operations can be performed on any user-defined region of the
image.  (The operations that don't support it are the ones for which regional
processing makes no sense, such as Size.)  A region can be a box, polygon,
or any free-hand closed shape.  The region is defined simply by moving the
pointer up to the Preview screen and drawing it.  There are also three
buttons marked R, G, and B, respectively, that can be used to select which
one(s) of the Red, Green, and Blue buffers to operate on.  For instance, you
can deselect Red and Green, and run Dynamic Range.  Minimums and maximums
are then sought for, and modifications applied to, the Blue buffer only.

    Again, I find ImageFX's approach very sensible.  The modular design
makes it an extremely flexible and powerful program; almost ANY operator can
be applied to almost ANY region of ANY subset of the RGB buffers, simply by
clicking a button or three.  I find the handling of regions very intuitive
and easy to use.

    ImageFX also supports Epson and Sharp scanners, plus a few
digitizers.  I haven't tested any of these modules.  There's also good
printing support (Preferences and PostScript).  Oh yes, and there's a great
warping/mo